By Brian Skeele, on April 2nd, 2011
Sustainable Neighborhood via killer apps
When it comes to Sustainability, the US is just as lost as most other nations. We have the added challenge of massive amounts of established suburbia, whereas Europe, for example, has much compact development built before the automobile. I’ve heard it said the Europeans have a lifestyle that is twice as efficient as that of the United States. They get twice the economic output as we get out of one BTU.
In my quest to come up with the Killer Modeling Tool that gives communities the ability to redevelop themselves sustainable, I came across this article in Ode Magazine about Bangladeshi entrepreneur Iqbal Quadir. He started a microloan program, the Grameenphone, that gets cell phones in the hands of the poorest people in the world.
With the introduction of cell phones, local entrepreneur efforts can flourish. For instance in the southern Indian state of Kerala, for example, the price of fish fell 4 percent while profits for the fishermen rose 8 percent because improved communication allowed fishermen to meet demand quickly and accurately. According to Leonard Waverman of the London Business School, the introduction of 10 mobile phones for every 100 residents of a developing country leads to a 0.6 percentage point increase in per capita GDP. Jeffrey Sachs, the celebrated development economist, has even called the mobile phone “the single most transformative tool for development.”
Iqbal recently wrote on The Huffington Post that sending 10,000 fewer American soldiers to Afghanistan would save $2.5 billion a year, which could be used to provide $300 microloans to 5 million Afghans and purchase Afghan products like carpets and pottery. “Trade and commerce could bring democracy and harmony from the bottom up,” Quadir wrote…. READ MORE >>